Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1970-1971 — Page 36

ing estates and, by the end of the year, 66,054 rooms in 9 estates were under cleansing contract (see Appendix 8).

60. However, a problem which arises with contract cleansing, in which mainly female labour is employed, is that the estate has no direct labour which can be called upon for heavier work, such as the removal of obstructions and abandoned articles left by tenants. To meet this problem special cleansing squads are sent out from Headquarters on a regular schedule to undertake anti-nuisance work in the estates. During the year 584 visits were made, and 15,139 lorry loads of refuse removed for burning. The department maintains two burning sites for articles that cannot be fitted into the Government incinerator.

HAWKERS AND TIDINESS TEAMS

61. Reference has been made above to the build-up of hawkers in the estates. These hawkers, who pay no rent, and in many cases no licence fee, have, in addition to the normal hawker commodities, now taken up the hawking of many others. Those taken up include meat and poultry, hardware and building materials. They are thus under- cutting the legal shops. At the end of the year there were 12,381 hawkers occupying almost all the public open spaces in the estates, many with structures of over 100 square feet in ground area; 2,073 of these were carrying on illegal trades such as the sale of cooked food, poultry and meat, and 273 were operating within the lobbies of blocks. These activities although supplying a cheap retail service to residents, caused considerable obstruction, dirt and nuisance, and many com- plaints were received from both domestic tenants and shopkeepers. Nine Tidiness Teams were in operation during the year and the situa- tion has been stabilized by immediate demolition action against new hawker structures, 4,777 being demolished during the year. A prosecu- tion section started during the year and secured 67 successful convic- tions against hawkers in lobbies for obstruction under the Summary Offences Ordinance, resulting in fines to a total of $10,230 (see Appendix 9). Five additional Tidiness Teams were approved at the end of the year, mainly to safeguard the open spaces in new estates, where it has been agreed that a new design of modular market will be constructed to provide proper facilities. However, in the absence of alternative marketing facilities, no large-scale clearances could be carried out in the old estates.

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